Veidlapa Nr. M-3 (8)
Study Course Description
Political and Economic Anthropology
Course Code
KSK_011
Branch of Science
Social Anthropology; Sociology and social work
ECTS
6.00
Target Audience
Social Anthropology
LQF
Level 7
Study Type And Form
Full-Time
Study Course Implementer
Course Supervisor
Klāvs Sedlenieks
Structure Unit Manager
Ieva Puzo
Structural Unit
Faculty of Social Sciences
Contacts
Dzirciema street 16, Rīga, szf@rsu.lv
About Study Course
Objective
The objective of the study course is to create a transparent and stimulating framework for students, in collaboration with the lecturer, to gain insight into the main topics and theories of political and economic anthropology and to develop an understanding of the major problems addressed by this sub-discipline of anthropology, with particular focus on the relationship between production principles and political decision-making and conflict resolution in different societies, using concepts from the analysis of other societies, contemporary European, Latvian and global processes. After completing the course, students must be able to navigate the main concepts of economic and political anthropology, understand the nature of existing debates and gain a general understanding of the main theoretical directions, as well as be able to apply the acquired knowledge, interpreting human behaviour in society.
Preliminary Knowledge
General introduction to anthropology, economics, political science.
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge
1.After completing the course, students must: - be familiar with the key concepts of economic and political anthropology, - understand the nature of the academic debate in question, - be able to demonstrate an understanding of the main theoretical directions.
Skills
1.One must be able to apply the knowledge acquired to interpreting human behaviour in society. *One must be able to analyse and review the work of colleagues *One must know how to write an argumentative essay *One must know how to use references correctly (*note, these are the horizontal skills that are the focus of the independent work in this course)
Competences
1.To critically evaluate the theoretical and empirical material covered in this study course, use it to interpret and analyse other theoretical and empirical material, and apply it to practical problem solving and research.
Assessment
Individual work
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Title
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% from total grade
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Grade
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1.
Individual work |
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Described in the e-learning environment. Preparation for seminar classes; studying the literature; writing essays, peer-reviewing essays, participating in seminars.
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Examination
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Title
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% from total grade
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Grade
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1.
Examination |
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For the exam, students write an argumentative essay of no more than 2500 words.
The topics for the final essays change every year. For the autumn semester 2023, it was as follows: Anthropological Analysis of Latvian Classics. Students choose one of the works below (choice limited to e-learning environment) and analyse it in detail, applying as much as possible the knowledge acquired in this course.
Examples of works:
“Kaķīša dzirnavas”;
“Uguns un nakts” by Rainis;
“Limuzīns Jāņu nakts krāsās”;
“Nāves ēnā” by Blaumanis;
“Četri Balti Krekli/Elpojiet dziļi”.
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2.
Examination |
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The essay writing is organised in such a way that half of the students write essays and the other half – critically evaluate them. This means that if there are 6 essays, each student writes 3 of them and reviews the others. One can’t write an essay and a review for the same seminar. The lecturer assesses both, i.e. students receive grades for both the essay and the review.
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3.
Examination |
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If the list of lectures and classes so indicates, students are required to prepare essays of no more than 1000 words on one of the topics proposed. Essays must be analytical and critically examine the topic proposed. The format of the essays must be an argumentative essay (http://antropologubiedriba.wikidot.com/argumenteta-eseja) The assessment of essays is based on (a) the structure of the essay; (b) the argumentation; and (c) knowledge of the topic.
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4.
Examination |
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Seminar topics and questions are listed in the e-learning environment
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5.
Examination |
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Grades will be calculated as follows:
1) Participation in seminars – 20%;
2) Work essays – 35%;
3) Reviewing essays – 15%;
4) Exam essay – 30%
The grade must not be lower than 4 in these four sections.
1. Seminars are compulsory. If you have not attended one of the seminars, you will have to make it up during the exam period. You can only make up for seminars if you have attended at least half of them. If you have not attended more than half, you must retake the course the following year.
2. The aim of the seminars is to give students the opportunity to discuss the issue in detail. This is only possible if students have the necessary knowledge of the topics relevant to the seminar, i.e. reading the literature before the seminar is essential. Participation in the seminars is assessed based on the student activity and knowledge of the topic.
3. If the list of lectures and classes so indicates, students are required to prepare essays of no more than 1000 words on one of the topics proposed. Essays must be analytical and critically examine the topic proposed. The format of the essays must be an argumentative essay (http://antropologubiedriba.wikidot.com/argumenteta-eseja) The assessment of essays is based on (a) the structure of the essay; (b) the argumentation; and (c) knowledge of the topic. Essays or reviews cannot be corrected.
4. Essays and reviews must be submitted by the deadline, after which it will no longer be technically possible to submit essays.
5. The essay writing will be organised in such a way that half of the students write essays and the other half – critically evaluate them. This means that if there are 6 essays, each student writes 3 of them and reviews the others. One can’t write an essay and a review for the same seminar. The lecturer will assess both, i.e. students receive grades for both the essay and the review.
6. Length of the review: no more than 300 words
7. Reviews assess how seriously a student has evaluated the work of their colleague, whether an attempt has been made to oppose and/or criticise the arguments made, and how well this has been done. Assessments that are based on common sense alone and do not demonstrate that the assessor has good knowledge of the subject and the literature are at risk of receiving a low grade.
8. The length of the exam essay is limited to 2500 words.
9. Exceeding the word limit in essays will reduce the grade.
10. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. A paper that will even partially contain signs of plagiarism will be assessed with 0 and the student will not have the opportunity to correct this grade. If plagiarism is detected in the exam essay, the entire course will be considered failed. If you are not sure what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, consult the lecturer immediately.
11. References should be formatted using reference management software (e.g. Zotero).
12. Lecture attendance is not compulsory, but is recommended. You can also learn some things you need to know by studying on your own, but the lectures will give you a better idea of the matters.
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Study Course Theme Plan
FULL-TIME
Part 1
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Introduction to Political and Economic Anthropology, Brief Overview of the History of the Theory. An Insight Into the Classical Division: Hunters/Gatherers, Horticulturalists, Farmers.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Introduction to Political and Economic Anthropology, Brief Overview of the History of the Theory. An Insight Into the Classical Division: Hunters/Gatherers, Horticulturalists, Farmers.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Where Economics and Politics Are Inseparable: Reciprocity and Gift Exchange.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Where Economics and Politics Are Inseparable: Reciprocity and Gift Exchange.
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Class/Seminar
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Location
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Reciprocity and Gift Exchange
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Class/Seminar
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Reciprocity and Gift Exchange
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Analysis of a Literary Work (e.g. “Spēlēju, dancoju” by Rainis) From the Point of View of Exchange Theories
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Analysis of a Literary Work (e.g. “Spēlēju, dancoju” by Rainis) From the Point of View of Exchange Theories
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Lecture
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2
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Topics
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Peacefulness and Cooperation
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Peacefulness and Cooperation
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Location
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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How To Interpret Economic Processes, What Is an Economy? The Formalist-Substantivist Debate and Marxist Anthropology.
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Lecture
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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How To Interpret Economic Processes, What Is an Economy? The Formalist-Substantivist Debate and Marxist Anthropology.
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2
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Peaceful Societies
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Peaceful Societies
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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The Formalist-Substantivist Debate
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Class/Seminar
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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The Formalist-Substantivist Debate
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2
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Topics
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Marxist Anthropology
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2
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Marxist Anthropology
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2
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Anthropology of the State: What Is a State, the Making of a Citizen, State as Performance.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Anthropology of the State: What Is a State, the Making of a Citizen, State as Performance.
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Lecture “The State as Liquid Crystal, State and Phantoms, European State and Kinship” (the lecture is based on K. Sedlenieks’ recent publications)
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Lecture
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Lecture “The State as Liquid Crystal, State and Phantoms, European State and Kinship” (the lecture is based on K. Sedlenieks’ recent publications)
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Class/Seminar
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Modality
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Location
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Contact hours
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On site
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Auditorium
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2
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Topics
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Is the State a Mechanism of Oppression or an Object of Longing?
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On site
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2
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Is the State a Mechanism of Oppression or an Object of Longing?
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Total ECTS (Creditpoints):
6.00
Contact hours:
48 Academic Hours
Final Examination:
Exam (Written)
Bibliography
Required Reading
1.
Block, Maurice. 2004. Marxist analysis and social anthropology. London: Malaby Press.
2.
Scott, James C. 2009. The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Jaunāks izdevums nav izdots)
3.
Mauss, Marcel. 1966. The Gift: forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge
4.
Polanyi, Karl. 2001. The Great Transformation. Boston: Bacon Press.
5.
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2021. "Chapter 7. Making a living". No Cultural anthropology: appreciating cultural diversity, 154-181. New York: McGraw-Hill.
6.
Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 2021. "Chapter 8. Political systems". No Cultural anthropology: appreciating cultural diversity, 182-209. New York: McGraw-Hill.
7.
Carrier, James G. 2022. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. 3-ā red. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839108921.00031.
8.
Malinowski, Bronislav. 2009. ‘The Essentials of the Kula’, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Chapter III, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 81-104
9.
Sahlins, Marshall, D. 2004. ‘On the Sociology of Primitive Exchange’, in Michael Banton (ed.), The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, ASA Monographs I, London: Tavistock Publications, 139-86, 225-36
10.
Laidlaw, James. 2000. ‘A Free Gift Makes no Friends‘, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 6, No. 4. (Dec. 2000), pp. 617-634
11.
Graeber, David. 2014. Debt: the first 5,000 years. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Melville House, chapter 5 ‘A brief treatise on the moral grounds of economic relations’, pp 89-126
12.
Gregory, Chris A. 2012. “On money debt and morality: some reflections on the contribution of economic anthropology”. Social Anthropology 20 (4): 380–396. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8676.2012.00225.x.
13.
Bonta, Bruce D. 1996. ‘Conflict Resolution Among Peaceful Societies: The Culture of Peacefulness’ Journal of Peace Research, vol 33, no. 4. 1996. pp 403-420.
14.
Briggs, Jean L. 2000. ‘Conflict Management in a Modern Inuit Community’ in Peter P. Schweitzer, Megan Biesele and Robert K. Hitchkock (eds.) Hunters and gatherers in the Modern World: Conflict, resistance, and Self-Determination. New York and Oxford: Berhgahn Books. pp. 110-124
15.
Turnbull, Colin M. 1978. 'The politics of non-aggression.' In Learning Non-aggression: The Experience of Non-literate Societies edited by Ashley Montagu. New York: Oxford University Press: 161-221
16.
Overning, Joanna. 1989. ‘Styles of Manhood: an Amazonian contrast in tranquility and violence’ in Signe Howell and Roy Willis Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge. Pp 79-99
17.
Dobinson, Kristin. 2004. "A Model of Peacefulness: Rethinking Peace and Conflict in Norway". Lpp. 121–35 no Keeping the peace: conflict resolution and peaceful societies around the world, sagatavoja G. Kemp un D. P. Fry. New York: Routledge.
18.
Fry, Douglas P., Geneviève Souillac, Larry Liebovitch, et all. 2021. “Societies within peace systems avoid war and build positive intergroup relationships”. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8 (1) (18. decembrī): 1–17. doi:10.1057/s41599-020-00692-8.
19.
Polanyi, Karl. 1957. 'The Economy as Instituted Process.' In Harry W Pearson, Conrad M Arensberg and Karl Polanyi (eds). Trade and Market in the Early Empires. Economies in History and Theory, 243-270. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press.
20.
Cook, Scott. 1966. The Obsolete "Anti-Market" Mentality: A Critique of the Substantive Approach to Economic Anthropology’ American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 68, No. 2, Part 1. (Apr., 1966), pp. 323-345.
21.
Bohannan, Paul. 1955. ‘Some Principles of exchange and Investment among the Tiv’, American Anthropologist, 57, 60-70
22.
Cimdiņa, Agnese. 2012. 'Lauku dzīves racionalitāte un kultūrsociālā iesakņotība.' Akadēmiskā Dzīve :48, pp. 35-45. (latviešu plūsmai)
23.
Block, Maurice. 2004. 'Property and the End of Affiinty.' In Maurice Block (ed). Marxist analysis and social anthropology, 203-228. London: Malaby Press.
24.
Meillassoux, Claude. 1981. Maidens, meal, and money: capitalism and the domestic community. New York: Cambridge University Press. ‘Introduction’ (pp xi-xiv) and ‘Domestic reproduction (pp 33-49.
25.
Ortner, Sherry B. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others Theory since the eighties”. Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73. doi:10.14318/hau6.1.004.
26.
Althusser, Louis. 2001. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)” No Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, 127-186 New York and London: Monthly Review Press
27.
Beyer, Judith. 2014. ""There is this law..." Performing the State in the Kyrgyz Courts of Elders". No Ethnographies of the state in Central Asia:, sast. Madeleine Reeves u. c., 99–123. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
28.
Jansen, Stef. 2014. “Hope For/Against the State: Gridding in a Besieged Sarajevo Suburb”. Ethnos 79 (2): 238–260. doi:10.1080/00141844.2012.743469.
29.
Mühlfried, Florian. 2014. Being a state and states of being in highland Georgia. Oxford, New York: Berghahn Books, chapter 2, pp 52-88
30.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. “Liquid crystal and the A1: densities of state from the perspective of a Montenegrin village”. Social Anthropology 28 (2): 496–511. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12788.
31.
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. “Phantom Rebellion: Performing the State in a Montenegrin Village and Beyond”. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 45 (1): 29–48.
32.
Graeber, David un David Wengrow. 2021. The Dawn of Everything. A new History of Humanity. London: Penguin Random House UK., chapter 10 “Why the State Has No Origin. The humble beginnings of sovereignty, bureaucracy and politics”.
Additional Reading
1.
Malinowski, Bronislav. 2009. ‘The Essentials of the Kula’, in Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Chapter III, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 81-104
2.
Hann, Chris M un Keith Hart. 2013. "Introduction: Economic Anthropology". No Economic anthropology: history, ethnography, critique, 1–17. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press.
3.
Lewellen, Ted C. 2003. Political anthropology: an introduction. third edition. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
4.
Gregory, Chris A. 2015. Gifts and Commodities. London: Academic Press.
5.
Fry, Douglas P. 2006. The human potential for peace: an anthropological challenge to assumptions about war and violence. New York: Oxford University Press, Chapters 13-15, pp 162-199
6.
Sedlenieks, Klavs. 2013. “What do Latvian ‘peaceful peasants’ do? Peace system in a rural parish of Latvia”. Journal of Baltic Studies 45 (1): 57–78. doi:10.1080/01629778.2013.836832.